1.2.13-Viventlespeuples
Archivist's note: This write-up was posted several months after the other commentary. Analysis! Obsession! AND BAPTISTINE’S COUCH: 1.2.13 Petit-Gervais Because I don’t think we ground that chapter quite as far into the dirt as we could have. So, as I play catch-up, why don’t we take a brief trip back to 1815 to examine Victor Hugo’s slightly more subtle chapter long metaphor than the man overboard. Emphasis on slightly. I present to you every reference to light or dark in this chapter under the cut, Julie Rose translation. (Be not fooled! Some of her stuff feels hilariously out of place, which is what people tend to quote. Because it is truly hilarious. But she does do an awful lot of stuff really well that’s been underrepresented in our discussions.) HERE WE GO! As the sun set at the end of the day, dragging out the shadow on the ground of the tiniest pebble, Jean Valjean sat behind a bush in a great red plain that was absolutely deserted. Valjean settling in before Petit-Gervais arrives. He’s still well lit here, but darkness is coming soon. I’m surprised he’s not going so far as contemplating his shadow. The boy stood with his back to the sun, which shot through his hair, turning it to threads of spun gold and flushing the savage face of Jean Valjean with a blood-red glow. Yeah, I know kalevala-sage has gone into how light Does Not Work That Way, but psshhhhh, Victor Hugo doesn’t need Earth physics. He has metaphor. And I thought it worked pretty well here. Gives the scene something of an unearthly quality which helps reinforce Valjean’s dissociated state. I DON’T KNOW I JUST LIKED IT. Then immediately after the kid disappears, so does the sun. A few seconds later, the boy had vanished. The sun had gone down. The shadows gathered around Jean Valjean. So yeah, the theft plunges him into darkness. On we go. He took a few steps back, without being able to take his eyes off the spot he had trampled underfoot only a moment before, as thought the thing shining there in the darkness were an open eye staring up at him. When he sees the coin. Everything is dark but he’s being watched. The inability to see in the darkness gets brought up about as much as light in this chapter, but if include all those in this post I may as well retype the whole chapter minus dialogue. Just acknowledging the connection here. He couldn’t see a thing. Night was coming down, the plain was cold, and murky, great violet mists swirling up in the glimmering twilight. Beating the dead horse. There was nothing all around but semi-darkness, in which his gaze was lost, and silence, in which his voice was lost. Beating it a lot. Then right after he gives all that money to the priest and tries to turn himself in: The moon had risen. Note: this is where he declares himself “un misérable.” Julie Rose renders it as “I am a miserable bastard!” I quite like that. In the glimmering light of all these thoughts, he staggered like a drunk. This after contemplating the bishop’s purchase of his soul. He got kinda ripped off though, didn’t he? I mean, the devil usually offers a much nicer deal than a bit of silverware and some candlesticks. When he had just gotten out of that ugly, dark, deforming place we call jail, the bishop had wounded his soul the way a sudden flash of blinding light would have hurt his eyes coming out of the dark. His future life, the life that opened up to him now, all pure and radiant, filled him with trembling and fear. He no longer really knew where he was. Like an owl suddenly confronted by sunrise, the convict had been dazzled and blinded by virtue. Something about Valjean having his eyes adjusted to the dark until BAM, the bishop shines his flashlight of virtue in his eyes and ruins his night vision? This final bad deed had a decisive effect on him; it suddenly pierced through the chaos in his mind and cleared it, rolling the blanket of darkness to one side and making way for the light on the other And so he contemplated himself, so to speak, face-to-face, and at the same time, through this hallucination, he saw, at a mysterious distance, a sort of light which he took at first to be a torch. Looking more closely at this light that dawned in his conscience, he saw that it had a human shape, and that the torch was the bishop. Like I said, only slightly subtler than the man overboard. Leave it to Hugo to explain all his extended metaphors at the end just in case. The longer the trance went on, the bigger and greater the bishop grew and the more he shone resplendent in his eyes, the more Jean Valjean faded and shriveled away. At a certain point he was no more than a shadow. Then, all of a sudden, he evaporated completely. The bishop alone remained. He flooded the entire soul of this miserable bastard with a glorious radiance. .Transaction complete. All sales are final. While he was crying, day dawned brighter and brighter in his spirit, and it was a extraordinary light, a light at once ravishing and terrible. And yet, a new day was dawning and its soft light was settling over his life and over his soul. He felt like he was seeing Satan in the light of paradise. So now, after one last plunge into darkness, Valjean has returned to the light with the dawn. Commentary Doeskin-pantaloons Oh wow, Vivent. Nice work. =) I didn’t notice half that stuff back in the day. Pilferingapples Reblogging for comments, and also for the Julie Rose stuff! Saberquill See? See? Julie Rose has her good points! Kalevala-sage …I’m stunned and a little aroused.